


safety net

by LadyMerlin



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Atypical Relationships, Don't copy to another site, Established Relationship, Flashbacks, Fluff (of sorts), Happy Ending, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Mentions of Suicidal Thoughts, POV Third Person, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-11 12:24:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19109617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyMerlin/pseuds/LadyMerlin
Summary: "If I was in a committed relationship, I’d want someone who had my back unconditionally, you know? I mean, it feels like if the Colonel ever stepped out of line, the Chief would be the first one to slice his toes off. How can you feel that way about someone and still go to bed with them?"Or; the one in which Jean tries to figure out the Colonel and Ed's relationship, and Riza helps.





	safety net

**Author's Note:**

> \o/ huzzah! another written-on-the-train fic! not beta-read! I have been heavily-rained on and am majorly sleep deprived! send love! pls!

“I don’t get it.”

Hawkeye hummed in response to indicate that she was listening, but didn’t look up from the paperwork in front of her.

“Their relationship, I mean. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Colonel be nice to the Chief, or the other way around.”

Riza capped her pen and turned her attention to him. “What do you mean?” she asked.

Jean tilted his chin and nodded at the inner room, from which shouting could be heard. Something crashed and he winced. “If I was in a committed relationship, I’d want someone who had my back unconditionally, you know? I mean, it feels like if the Colonel ever stepped out of line, the Chief would be the first one to slice his toes off. How can you feel that way about someone and still go to bed with them?”

Riza sighed. “When I first joined the Colonel’s team, after Ishbal, do you know what’s the first thing he said?”

Jean shook his head and she continued. “He said if he ever did something unforgivable, if he ever became like the people we were working to overthrow, he wanted me to do him one last favour and shoot him point blank before he got any further.”

Jean flinched, hard. “What?”

Riza shrugged. “The Colonel is… not an easy man. His greatest fear is that he will end up abusing the power which he has stripped from others. He has good intentions but he worries that the pursuit of his own ideology might lead him off the track of justice and righteousness. It sounds lofty but you’ve seen his powers. You know what he could do if he lost control.”

It was a sobering thought, and Jean took a minute to give it due consideration. He wanted to say that Mustang wasn’t capable of evil, but… well. At the end of the day, they all were. That had been proven.

“And Edward... Can you imagine how tormented the Colonel must have been, because of his age? Nothing in his history had prepared him for the thought that he might one day fall in love with a male subordinate half his age. Can you imagine how that affected him?”

And to be fair, everyone had had a lot of questions when the Boss and the Chief first came public with their relationship. Ed being a man had been the least objectionable part of the entire thing. They’d all asked a hundred questions each, ranging from “what about fraternization regs” to “ _have they lost their entire minds?!_ ”

“When he confessed to me,” Riza continued, “he handed me a gun and told me to have mercy. He told me if Hughes had been around, he’d have asked him to do it, but he was going to have to ask for my help because he was weak, and he couldn’t do it himself.” Jean felt his face go pale, blood draining away all at once. “He said he’d hold it, but I just had to pull the trigger, and if I got away and burned my clothes, I’d never be implicated. Had everything planned out, too. Who’d take charge, whom we could trust and whom we couldn’t, plans for Ishbal, everything was in place, his will, his final instructions. He invited me to his house that night as the instrument of his death.”

Her voice was steady and even, but Jean could see grief in her eyes, and pain. He wondered what she could see in his face. Probably the same. Mustang was a leader of the sort Jean had never thought he’d even meet, let alone be allowed to follow. And he hadn’t even known him for the length of time Hawkeye had known him. “What did you do?” He asked, even though he probably knew the answer. If it had been him, he’d have shouted at his commanding officer till he lost his voice, but then again, this was Riza.

“I called Edward.”

And no, Jean hadn’t been expecting that. He winced again, this time in sympathy, though he wasn’t sure for whom. “Took his gloves off and cuffed him to the chair with his hands behind his back. Took off his trousers because the bastard can draw his array behind his back with his eyes closed, and I knew he kept chalk and pins in his pockets. The last thing I wanted was for him to get desperate.”

Jean wanted to lighten the mood with a joke but he couldn’t get a single word out, over the lump in his throat. Even without his legs, he hadn’t gotten that close or that desperate. He’d never even considered…

“Ed damn near broke down the front door. Receiving a phone call from me at Mustang’s house at that time of night must have set off all his alarm bells. I think he got the wrong idea at first, because the Colonel was in his boxers and he didn’t even look up when Ed came in.” Jean tried to visualize the scene, but he couldn’t. “But then I don’t know. He must have seen the look on my face. I’d disarmed my gun and he saw the cartridge on the other side of the room. I don’t know. He figured out that something was wrong really quick.”

Jean realized that he wasn’t breathing and forced himself to inhale deeply, and not focus on the fact that Riza was fidgeting with her pen. For a sniper, that was really, _really_ unsettling.

“I told him that he needed to talk to the Colonel. Told him that the Colonel had something important to tell him. And then I asked him to be kind, because I cared for both of them, and I didn’t want either of them to be hurt. Then I took my gun and left.”

Jean stared at here, speechless. Riza shrugged. “Ed is the best man the Colonel knows. The strongest and the surest and the kindest. Nothing in this world could make Ed break his promises. If Ed didn’t want to be with the Colonel, he’d make sure the Colonel knew it. The Colonel doesn’t trust himself, but he trusts Ed to do that, the way he trusted me to do what was necessary if he crossed a line. There is no one else in the world whom the Colonel could trust himself to not take advantage of, despite Ed’s youth.” And that did make a strange sort of sense. Ed _was_ one of the strongest people Jean knew, apart from the Colonel, and Hawkeye. Ed would never accept something he didn’t want.

Almost as if he knew they were talking about him, the door to the Colonel’s room slammed open and Ed stomped out, characteristic scowl carved on his face. The Colonel followed more slowly, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. That was a good sign. It meant that Ed wasn’t really angry.

Ed spun around, golden braid flying with his movement, and glared at the Colonel, jabbing a finger at his chest. “Lunch,” he demanded, lowly. He turned to glare at Jean, as if he’d heard the height-related thought, and Jean held up both hands in the traditional display of surrender.

“What would you like, Fullmetal?” the Colonel asked, wrapping his hand around Ed’s aggressive pointer finger.

If someone had walked in right then, they’d have had no doubt that the Colonel and Ed were in the midst of a fight that was beginning to get physical. But something about the tone of the Colonel’s voice, the way his hand was gentle around Ed’s hand, the soft slant of his shoulders, and the goddamn smoulder in his eyes which Jean had been trying to replicate for _years_. Something about all of that gave them away. There was no anger there, only affection, and familiarity.

Ed waited a long, _long_ moment before he yanked his hand out of the Colonel’s grip, and swiveled on one heel to stomp away. If Jean hadn’t been paying attention, he’d have missed the light blush rising in Ed’s cheeks. He kicked the front door of the office open and was out of the office before the door could even hit the wall and bounce back. The Colonel ambled after, like he knew Ed wasn’t going anywhere without him. He paused at the threshold.

“Well?” he asked, “are you coming? Edward and I have something to tell you. Lunch is on me.”

As the office erupted into a flurry of people energized by the promise of free food, Jean caught the look passing between the Colonel and Riza, a nod from the Colonel and a soft smile from Riza, who was in that moment Riza and not Hawkeye. She probably knew what it was. Jean had no clue, but he was okay with that; he’d find out soon enough.

And as they all squeezed into a single car, he couldn’t help but notice that Ed sat beside the Colonel, closer than they strictly had to be, their knees and thighs pressed together. He didn’t look away in time to avoid seeing the Colonel slide his arm around Ed’s waist, and Ed absently settling into the hold, like it was something he was comfortable with, without even thinking about it.

Ed turned to Fuery beside him to have an intense conversation about something technological, and his arms were flying all over the place like weapons of mass destruction in the small space. The Colonel was looking at them fondly and with one hand he caught Ed’s braid and stroked it gently, a very literal sort of pigtail-pulling. Without even turning to look, Ed smacked the Colonel’s thigh and the Colonel caught Ed’s hand in his own, lacing their fingers together, a move so intimate that it sent a shiver down Jean’s spine.

On Ed’s finger, something glinted gold.

Well. Maybe it made sense after all. 

**Author's Note:**

> no seriously, I have no idea what I'm doing; concrit is always appreciated, as is love and affection.


End file.
